The present invention relates to the editing of digital still photographs and of video images.
Digital photography is very popular and there are many digital images—both still and video—being generated. Photographers, including members of the general public, are very interested in being able to edit the digital images being generated. The editing involves many different operations. For example, many users want to crop one object from a first picture and crop another object from a second picture and add these objects to a new picture, such as a collage. This function, as well as other editing functions, require the identification of structures or objects within an image.
Tools are available that allow editing of this nature to take place. For example, digital image editing tools available today provide such editing tools. Photoshop, one of the readily available editing tools, provides a Magic Wand tool and an Intelligent Scissors tool, each of which allow a user to attempt to crop an object from an image. In the Magic Wand tool, the user clicks on a point and Photoshop attempts to isolate or segment the object. Often times, several attempts are needed to successfully segment the selected object. In the Intelligent Scissors tool, the user clicks on the boundary. Both of these tools are problematic and time consuming to use, and create frustration on the part of the users.
Manufacturers of digital cameras are also providing software tools with their cameras that provide some editing capabilities. These software tools, in some cases allow the cropping of objects from images, and therefore segment objects. However, they also provide limited capabilities. They are also slow and problematic in their use.
Thus, new and improved method and systems to segment selected objects in digital images (still and video), and to provide quicker segmentation of the selected objects, are needed.